Sandhill CSA

Hey everybody!!!

2011-04-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, how long has it been? Too much time has passed, I know, since I last updated anyone on our blog. The year that has passed since I finished graduate work has been filled with activity, productivity, and wonder. Not only on the farm, but in the lives of our whole family. Jenn is working on becoming a midwife, the children are all doing well with school, and Emma’s writing gets better and better. Of course, this is the farm blog, so I’ll stick to that subject, and leave the rest for later inquiry.

I don’t remember where I left off last season. I know nearly filled our projected share bounty, only falling a little short on pork, by delivering 36 pounds instead of forty. But all the chickens were delivered, all the turkeys drew rave reviews, and the eggs are always favorites. Everything went well for the season, with our only rough spot being the processing of the turkeys. Our work schedules interfered with our ability to harvest in a timely matter, so they were huge, and it became quite a struggle to lift a fifty pound bird out of a chicken tractor. We’ll do things a little differently this season. A little more planning perhaps?

Winter successes included the maturation of our second layer flock. We now have eggs taking over our fridge and counter space much of the time. We anticipated this, and are selling les expensive chicken and egg only shares. We should also have plenty of extras that will be sold pay for feed. We always give some away, or as we prefer to say, share.

Our new flock, or should I say, Rosa’s “pet” project, has been the sheep. We move the ewe’s over to a neighbors barn for the winter, and they were successfully mated. One lamb has been birthed already, without any problems. The lamb took to mom as our creator intended, and they can be seen in our front pasture together. Our other ewe looks as though she will lamb at anytime. Births on a farm are always special, whether it’s chicks or lambs.

Speaking of chicks, we averted disaster with the broilers. The day we received them, less than 24 hours old, we moved them directly to the brooder with heat lamps, in the garage and well protected from the wind. As we left for the farm store, all was right with the world. However, when we returned less than an hour later, every chick was near dead. In fact, they seemed about as dead as Lazarus. It seems that they had all decided to swim in the waterer I had provided, which was too large for chicks. Their down was soaked, and they lost body temperature. Against all hope, we piled the chicks into a box (it seemed kind of useless to be gentle), and brought them into the kitchen. We tired to towel dry them, but it was not working – at least not fast enough. So I drove to the dollar store because we have no hair dryer, and brought one home. And – it worked; perfectly. Out of seventy chicks, all but eight not only survived, but acted as though nothing had ever happened. They are all doing very well. Science may explain this event fairly easily, but only the language of miracles can provide an appropriate meaning. These are the life events that allow us to experience God, and incorporate such events into an ongoing narrative of faith as the major informant of day-to-day living.

I almost forgot, Micah, a Methodist preacher, and I, all drove to Sheridan and purchased to ram lambs. We will be turning those into meat, but have not decided if we will butcher in November, when the meat is tenderer, or in spring, when we can harvest more wool and just ground all of the lamb. We are also thinking of culling our breeding Ram, as he is eight years old, and we are not sure how much longer he will be able to sire. This, of course, means we will be looking for a new Corriedale ram over the summer.

We are slaughtering a yearling bull, hopefully this week, and will replace it with another dairy bull calf. We were going to give the bull a lot more time, but the castration band had broke without our knowing, and, well, the little guy is now a bull, and I am the only one who will go into the pen. I have a big stick!
Pigs will be here on June first, and who knows what else will come our way. I do know, that, only a month ago things seemed to be moving slow, and I was not eager for the season to begin. Yet, once we got started adding to the life of the farm, there is much more to take in, more to enjoy, and more relationships to be developed with those special creatures that do more than bring us comfort, they provide sustenance. We value this cycle, and that is why we treat our animals the best we can, even if everything gets pretty dirty, or, nasty sometimes, especially during the winter.

Lot’s of shares left to sell, and many more pictures that we will have to share. Hope that you will stop by and see us, scot and jenn and family.

Sometimes, a farm grows justice

2010-07-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

So often, it seems my heroes are Black women. When I think of Jesus, and Quakerism, I prefer to see my Truth claims lived out through the actions of real people, as opposed to relying simply upon the Beloved text. The salvation that I believe comes from Jesus is made known through those people who sacrifice themselves voluntarily and step out of their comfort zone in order to do justice. At this point, you might be asking now what this has to do with farming at Sandhill.
Family farming had a lot to do with Shirley Miller Sherrod’s life, even though I have read in statement’s attributed to her that she hated the work. Whether or not she hated the work, her experience of family farming in the Southeastern United States made an impact on her, as did the institutionalized racism of the South. Her father was shot to death for being “uppity.” She faced all sorts of obstacles to voting while living in the South. Basically, it is my understanding that she is a product of the South, and her life has become an example of what I call a commitment to narrative as the expression of the truth of salvation through the life of Jesus.
Sherrod went off to college to earn her undergraduate and graduate degrees. In my opinion, she exemplifies the old school Antioch student, who was intent on changing the world by making herself available to others. With her education, she returned to the South, laboring against injustice. And, as her life went forth, she returned to the farms of the South, intent on helping African-American farmers hold on to their land. And, as we now know, she overcame her moments of personal prejudice to help a white family keep their farm. In her speech to the NAACP, which was delivered some time ago, she spoke about how she overcame this initial prejudice and experienced a kind of redemption while engaged in the process of helping this family overcome their problems.
Of course, we know the story of Sherrod’s speech and how one piece of her presentation was taken out of context and presented to the general public as an example of reverse racism. And, we now know that Sherrod has been vindicated. Yet, what I find salvific in this event, is not Sherrod’s vindication through the media, or apologies on behalf of the government officials who threw her under the bus while responding emotionally to charges of reverse-racism. What I find salvific in this media event is that I now know the story of Sherrod’s life, and how she has chosen to respond to institutionalized racism, injustices, and being suddenly thrust into the middle of a media race-baiting frenzy. It seems to me that Jesus is made known by Sherrod’s commitment to responding in a positive way to the murder of her father by maintaining her own dignity, refusing to publically lay blame upon anyone, and taking action against those enemies that would have kept her “in her place.”
She pursued education so that she might level the intellectual playing field, and returned to help her own. I define her own as farmers, as opposed to African-Americans, because she herself came to identify the plight of the poor and marginalized of all races and ethnicities as part of a greater failed system that often had its claws clutched more firmly around the necks of Blacks. And, in recognizing this, she overcame her moment of prejudice by realizing the greater Truth that humanity is broken, and all need redemption. Now, her family still owns the farm, and she is said to have purchased thirty additional acres by a CNN story. And, while CNN states that Shirley Sherrod is vindicated now that we all know the truth of the context of her “racist” statement, I believe she is vindicated by the life that she has lived, and it amazes me how evident the life of Jesus is in relation to this event, and especially in the life of Sherrod.
Still, what does this have to do with Sandhill. One night at a Quaker book study, I was tired from a long day at work, and graduate classes, and I was in a particularly angry state of being. I got to complaining about how nobody ever took action against brokenness, but simply complained about it and engaged in shouting matches. I was challenged by someone at the study. What are you doing Friend, and why don’t you take action. My response was to overcome my anxiety about failure, and my family started our own farm. As opposed to being negative and pointing out the flaws in a collective response to the brokenness of relationships between rural and urban residents, our family worked to bring two cultures together to experience the joy of farming and food, and how it is provided. As such, we have also been able to live out our faith in Jesus in a manner that makes us feel like we are doing our part in contributing to the ongoing narrative of Jesus.
I don’t believe that farming is the vindicating factor in the story of Sherrod. I do believe that her participation in the ongoing story of her life as an African-American from the rural South, and maintaining her identity through a continuity of place and history, has made, not only her working with a white family to obtain justice, but her whole life, a commitment to justice that is intelligible to all because of its continuity. Ultimately, it will be the story of Sherrod’s life that will be a vindicating factor, just as Jesus’ life is salvific. Shirley Sherrod’s life makes the story of Jesus’ salvific life understandable. That is the kind of story that Sandhill wants to draw folks into. We hope to be a story-formed community of folks that invest in a project that hopes to build relationships through a commitment to place and history. We hope that someday, with a little dedication, people will be drawn into community and live a life of justice and non-violence together, with Jesus and farming at the center.

Windy Whizbang Weekend

2010-06-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

About our Whizbang chicken’ pickin’experience! Sandhill CSA finally got around to processing our first round of broilers for the season, and the week or two we waited to do the job was well worth it. We finally made good on our intention to implement a mechanical chicken plucker into our processing regimen. Of course, we were not going to spend the $1200 to $1400 to buy a store-bought one. We have forever been seeing ads for a do-it-yourself model called the Whizbang Chicken Plucker, whose plans were drawn and the model developed by Herrick Kimball, a long-time backyard chicken farmer. Indeed, the whizbang model plucks two chickens in less than 20 seconds, and makes the whole processing event go along more smoothly, with a significant reduction in arthritic manual feather picking.

We only lost one chicken in this round of 50, and we don’t know why it didn’t make it. The other birds, considering the additional time we fed them out, weighed in mostly between 5 ½ and 6 ½ pounds, and were all very nice looking chickens. We were very pleased. The extra costs of feeding 50 six pound birds, however, was significant. At any rate, we wanted to wait until the plucker was built.
The plucker, in fact, could not be built by Jenn and I - not reasonably. While it says anyone can put it together, there is a need for familiarity with a number of skills, such as pulley and v-belt applications, electric wiring, and extreme attention to detail. Fortunately, our neighbor Jack has all the skills necessary to build chicken pikers, and a lot of other mechanical interests. So, he being retired, was happy to tackle the project just to see if the crazy thing would work. Jack spent about four or five days putting it together, with a number of trips to the store being found necessary, and a little more waiting for special ordered parts. While Jenn and I might have gotten the thing together, it would have taken quite a while longer just to catch up with the mechanical learning curve. Jack has been a Godsend to our family and farm. And, the plucker works, with perhaps only a few modifications necessary.

We would have finished all of the birds in two days, only needing the extra day because Jenn had to work at the library. However, as Jack predicted Saturday morning, weather got in our way. With four chickens waiting to be processed, and five more left to cull and pluck, I noticed the darkest clouds I have seen in a while coming on pretty quickly, and I directed Micah and Rosa to shut in the layer hens while I attended to the broody hen and her chicks. Just as I had walked about halfway across the pasture, the wind picked up more, and Jenn came out to tell me the power was out. Then came the noise, and the top of the tree-line was swirling in circles, as were piles of leaves that had flown over from the woods. I started yelling very loudly to everyone outside, “go downstairs and take cover now!”

Everyone ran into the house, and I anchored down the tractor that contained the Ms. Broody and her chicks. This took some time, because the wind kept blowing the tarp off. At the same time, I heard that noise in the air to the south of us that suggested something more than a strong wind was developing. I was going to head downstairs, when I saw the chicken tractor that held the last five broilers, a test model I had made from PVC and tarp, was actually blowing away! I ran over, put it back in place, and then went to the garage to find more anchors. I actually ended up dragging old used tires out of the garage to hold the tractor down, and sat out there with the chix tractor for a few more seconds to make sure it would work. At some point, I decided there was nothing more that I could do, and ran into the house to go downstairs. However, I found one more thing needed to be done. There were four, plucked and nearly butchered, chickens sitting out in the heat of the chicken. I had to bag them up, and put them into the freezer outside in hopes that they would all stay fresh while the power was out.

Then I was ready to go downstairs, but a torrential rain began to fall, and I had to make another trip around the house to shut all of the windows. I did so, and then finally went downstairs to tell Jenn and the kids that everything was taken care of, and I would stay upstairs to monitor the sky. When I returned upstairs, everything was clear. It seemed like it had taken most of an hour to get through everything, but it had probably taken less than 10 minutes. Everyone came upstairs, candles were brought out, and we sat together in the living room eating melted ice cream and waited for the power to come back on. It didn’t until after bedtime, at 11:30, when seemingly every light in the house snapped on. Fortunately, it was only out for four hours, and all of the chicken in the fridge and freezer stayed fresh, and all of the broilers out in the pen kept their feet on the ground. At least for one more day.

Finally, a Farm Update

2010-06-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I’ve updated the blog. We received an email from a Friend in Washington State, and she wondered if we were busy with the farm since we had not been blogging for a while. Well, we have been very busy with the farm, and there are a lot of updates.

First, the pigs are now hogs, and they are eating a lot. I think we might change the feed over to a 12 percent protein, as they are close to weight and the lower protein feed casts less. All six hogs are weighing close to 200 pounds, I’d guess, and butchering day is set for July 29. This year’s pork is far surpassing the harvest from last season, as we purchased far better quality feeders.

Our layers are laying just fine, and our new Australorps are growing just great. Hopefully, they will begin laying at the end of August, so that we will have some eggs for sale over the winter. As for the first batch of fifty broilers, they should be ready for butchering in a week or two. We could butcher next weekend, but we could let them grow another week to add a few pounds. We might even have some extra for sale, unless we sell the rest of our five shares soon.

We added bull calves this spring, and had a few problems. We purchased some Jersey calves for $25 a piece, and brought them home, where they promptly came down with a bad case of the scours. We had to do some nursing, but both came through with the use of a home remedy that rehydrated them, and a little extra warmth from some heat lamps. The health of these bull calves became a real point of interest for a couple of neighbors, both of whom raise Jerseys and have had multiple problems with the calves because they tend to be weaker than other breeds. We found this out first hand, as one of them, right after being rid of the scours, came down with a joint disease. I held off giving penicillin in hopes of the calf improving, as it was eating very well, and getting itself up to stand with relative ease, even though it was having trouble with its front legs. However, when I went out the next morning, the calf could not get itself up at all, and could not eat. I administered some penicillin, but it was too late. The calf passed on after two hours. The other one, which the kids named Eros (I know, I know), is doing great, and will be eating grass in no time. We still hope to get another bull calf so that we can offer beef next season.

As expected, we were able to pick up our yearling ewes, which Rosa has been waiting patiently for for more than a year. We picked them up, had a pleasant visit, and brought the animals home without any problem. I had just finished putting up the electric fencing in the pouring rain the day before, and during the morning, and felt comfortable that it could hold most anything. When it came time to unload the sheep, I lifted the biggest one out and placed it in the shelter, just barely latching the fence. As I went to get the other one, the first burst out of the pen and into the pasture. This does not seem to bad, but of course, the story continues.

Being told by the breeder that the sheep should spend a few days penned before letting them out into pasture, I became intent on rounding the ewe up and back into the pen. Now, she did not know me from Adam, and was naturally very scared. I should have known from previous experience with animals that, you simply cannot control an animal that you do not have some sort of relationship established with, if at all, when they set their mind to something else. After about ten minutes of trying to keep away from Micah and I in the pasture, the ewe went right through the electric fence, and I followed, right through the electric fence. I chased the animal for about 15 minutes in the pouring rain, and then Jenn came home during the chase, and her and Rosa began to help, We tried for about an hour, in the continuing rain, but could not catch that ewe, who finally ran across an open field, and far away from us. Jenn and Rosa were crushed, and I was simply distraught. I had no idea what would become of the ewe, but it was now out of our hands. We put the other animal into the pen without incident.

The next morning, one neighbor stopped by and told us that someone spotted a ewe in their back yard, and figured it was probably ours. (I wonder why?) At least we knew it was in the area. Another neighbor stopped by to help Jenn and Rosa look for the animal, but I did not go, as I did not think we would be able to catch the animal even if we saw it. On First Day, Jenn and Rosa made flyers offering a reward for the lost sheep. When they left to post the flyers, Micah suggested out of the blue that they stop at a house around the corner of our section and ask the neighbor if they had seen our ewe. Jenn stopped, at least to let them know we were missing an animal. When she spoke to the neighbor, he indicated that he found a ewe eating grass right outside of his goat pasture, and when he invited the girl in, she walked right in and began socializing with the goats. Jenn brought the ewe home without incident, and we unloaded her from Jenn’s van into the pasture.

Of course, by this time, the other ewe had found her way out of the pen, and was lonely. I can’t believe how sociable sheep are. She was attracted the company that would be offered to her by the hogs, and the taller grass, and went right through my so called impenetrable fence. When we got the lost ewe into the pasture, she saw her partner, and then she jumped through the fence, and that is where the two of them have remained. And they spend as much time next to the hogs as they can. Naturally, we borrowed money for a more powerful fencer (I am not working yet) and cut all the overgrown grass, which should have been done weeks ago. Learn as you go, that’s our motto. All the animals are doing fine now, and so are we. We feel blessed by each of them, except for one of the roosters.

Another great day, and more progress toward meeting our goals

2010-04-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

Great day of work today. Micah really contributed a lot while we worked on fixing a chicken tractor and finishing up the fencing around the new hen house. Farming is a great way to spend time with your children and enjoy an abundance of teaching and learning opportunities as well. The layers are really starting to grow, and we are moving them closer each day to the hen house so that they will be able to run cage free very soon. As one of our shareholders and fellow Quakers reminded me, when chickens get to eat naturally by picking through the grasses and other natural edibles, they produce eggs that are incredibly high in Omega 3. By September, we will have two grown layer flocks, and will have a lot of eggs for next season’s shareholders.
I said we were working on hen house fencing, and perhaps I should explain. We use portable tarp shelters for our layer hens, and they are easy for predators to get into by digging underneath the bottom edge of the tarp. To prevent this, we erect a welded wire fence around the outside of the shelter, and then lay chicken wire on the ground extending out from the welded wire. We zip-tie the chicken wire to the welded wire, then use tent stakes to keep the chicken wire tight to the ground. This has been effective in preventing raccoons from digging through into the hen house, unless you forget to shut the welded wire fence gate.
An interesting thing happened about a week and a half ago, and I didn’t write about it because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. We lost a chicken from our layer flock, most likely because I didn’t feel like closing up the hen house (AS STATED ABOVE). Predators always return to the scene of their kill the very next night, so, as usual, I waited outside to hunt the predator. What I suspected would be a coyote (you can tell by the manner of the kill) turned out to be something entirely different. It was a huge fox! I was unable to raise my shotgun in time to shoot it cleanly, and so the fox went its own way. It did not return, but I got to thinking. It is one thing to kill a raccoon or a skunk, or a coyote. It is entirely another manner to shoot a beautiful animal like this fox that I saw in our pasture. Also, I think that many of our shareholders would feel the same way had they saw this animal. At any rate, the fox did not return, but I had to admit that this might pose a problem later in the season, and I can’t have predators circling the farm and helping themselves to chickens and who knows what else. So, I decided to make a significant investment in hopes of eliminating the need to kill predators.
I invested in a solar powered blinked LED light that guarantees to keep predators away from the area surrounding it. One light will not work, you need one every hundred feet or so, at least that is what is recommended. So we now own six of these lights at a cost of $34 each. This was a significant expense for our farm, but in the end, I hope that it eliminates any shareholder concerns about the need to eradicate predators. I also hope it will allow me to get to sleep at night during the summer, as raccoons and such don’t come out until 1 or 2AM.
Broilers come this Wednesday, and should be ready for pickup in eight weeks. We have a lot of fencing decisions to make before the sheep come, and we are going to feed out Jersey bull calves for beef for next year. We anticipated getting beef steers, but the prices for stock were nearly $600 more than we had budgeted for. We will need to save for breeding stock if we want to get any steers bred for beef. At any rate, the Jerseys are very pretty to look at, and they do well on grass, though they can be somewhat small, Hope to see you soon at Sandhill, bye for now.

The Pigs Are Here!

2010-04-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yea, the pigs are here! Jenn’s brother Dan and I drove to Bellevue, MI to pick up the six pigs we purchased with share money. They are awfully cute, and very excited to be moved from a more confined space to our expanded pen. For the comfort of the swine, I doubled the size of the pen. As it turns out, there is a dearth of feeders available this season, and everything we checked out was going at 4-H prices, which is about $75-$100 per pig. We purchased Sandhill’s pigs for $75 each. As we did in Ohio, we decided to buy pigs that were in confinement. Last year, we took rejects from a corporate farm, but they proved to be much less healthy than we bargained for, and did not feed out at a very good rate. That means we wasted a lot of feed.
I also have another pig story for you, one that is favored by Jenn and Emma. One year in Ohio, Micah received a toy train, and when you pushed a button on the toy, it made a train whistle sound and a chugging sound, and the front end lit up like a train light. One night, we had some problems in the barn where the hogs were, and I had to hustle out to see what was going on. As it turned out, we were woefully underprepared in the flashlight department, and it was very dark. So, I had to grab Micah’s toy train, and then continuously push the button on it so that the light would turn on and I could see where I was going. Of course, every time I pushed the button, the train whistle would go off and the toy train would make a little chugging sound. Jenn and Emma were laughing uncontrollably. In fact, the hogs even stopped whatever it was they were doing and stared at me with interested smiles. Thank goodness for rural seclusion.
Sometimes, however, we are not as secluded as we might like to be. Last fall, when we were feeding out the final batch of broilers, we had a problem with a skunk stealing chicks. The first morning, our son Dylan was waiting for the bus when the skunk came, and he scared it away by throwing something at it. The second morning, I heard the chicks making a ruckus (they were right outside our bedroom window). I leapt out of bed, and grabbed a hunting gun. I didn’t want to take too long and let the skunk get away, so I simply ran outside in my boxer shorts and knee boots. I was not paying any attention to time, but I knew I had made a mistake when I heard Dylan shout, “Dad, get back in the house!” As luck would have it, his school bus was just pulling up to pick him up for school. I’m sure every kid on the bus easily identified me as the crazy “militia man” running around in his underwear looking for the black helicopters of the “One World Government.”
More farm news – we are scheduled to pick up the yearling ewes on the weekend of fifth month the 21, in Alma, MI. We pick up our first batch of broilers on the 14th of this month. Our egg production is right around 20 to 24 eggs per day. We are still looking for bull calves to feed out for beef, and as of now, we have about eight shares left to sell.

The Brooder Works

2010-03-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

The Brooder works, and our first batch of chicks are healthy as can be! I apologize for taking so long to post. Jenn and I are very busy with studies and internships and work schedules, but the farm will not suffer – only our blog. Anyway, we picked up the Black Australorp chicks that Jenn chose for layers this year. They may begin to lay as soon as 8th month, but more likely in 9th month. This means that we can predict more eggs per share next season, and have some extra for sale. But, to paraphrase an old adage, don’t count your eggs before they are laid.
We ordered a second shelter that was needed, this one came through ebay. We have been able to save significantly by using Craigslist and ebay, but be careful, at least of Craigslist. Some things are not always advertised as they should be, or are as they are advertised.
I mentioned chicks above, but one of the great things about kids and spring, and farming, and farm stores, is that the first shipment of chicks marks the beginning of the season. Micah and Rosa had been saving up for chicks of their own, apart from the regular layers. After meeting for worship on the 8th of this month, we had to stop at the farm store to pick up a few incidentals for the brooder. Jenn and I surprised the kids with the announcement that they could be the first to give the brooder a try, and they picked out five chicks of their own. Naturally, those first peepers ended up spending their first night in the house with the kids. That is a more pleasurable experience than brooding 50 broilers in a bedroom. (Yes, that has been done.)
We have also talked with sheep farmer Cary from Alma, and are getting ready to begin that purchase. First, we need to erect one of the new shelters and prepare it for livestock. We then need to erect new fencing. We have already seeded that pasture, and are now praying that God will water and grow what we have planted. However, the simple exchange of emails makes us feel like time is wasting away. The next few months are exciting times of the season, because we are getting new animals and building new projects, and there is always something to do or plan. Drudgery begins immediately in 5th month ; ).
As for shareholder news, we have been able to provide eggs already to those who have become early shareholders. Hopefully, this is a motivator for those who have not yet purchases. We hope to write again sooner next time, blessings, Scot and Jenn and the family.

More winter work

2010-02-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

We’ve been getting some things done this week. Jenn is off in Mexico, and Scot has taken the week off from work to be with the kids. What an opportunity to get farm work done. We have already completed the new chicken tractor frames. As mentioned below, we are using PVC pipe this season instead of wood, and we altered the design in other ways as well. All that is left to do is get the frames outside, reassemble them, and add the chicken wire and tarp roofs. Our first broilers should be ordered in April.
March 8 is the date that we will pick up the layer hens. We are getting Black Australorps this season, a brown egg layer and heritage breed. Jenn picked out the breed. As for the new hen house, we were lucky enough to save over $200 by finding the portable garage that we favor for housing chickens on Craigslist. Scot was very excited. We now need one more, and are waiting for it to show up on the same site. They normally cost $360.
We have made contact with the person we are purchasing lambs from, and will probably go with the one-year-old ewes in May, and then add a ram and a wether later in the season when it is time to breed. Along with the lamb project, Rosa and Micah are preparing to buy their own chicks when they arrive ate the farm store. Incidentally, we have decided to make our feed purchases from a local chain store, Family Farm and Home, instead of through the local cooperative. As we have mentioned below, we would rather purchase grain grown locally, but the folks at the coops around here are just plain unfriendly toward us. At FF@H, we have developed relationships with the employees, and the grain comes from Armada, Michigan, over in Macomb County. There was a third choice, Floyd the Feed man, who is very friendly and the least expensive, but he sells Purina Brand feed, which is far from being a local product.
This First Day is Micah’s birthday, and he will get a cake, and probably get to pick out a present at the farm store. As you can tell by the picture above, taken last year, Micah is partial to the John Deere equipment he sees driving along our back roads all year. While we could not ever use such machinery, we did get a used John Deere riding mower, which Micah likes to drive around on with Scot during lawn mowing days. He then rakes up the grass and feeds it to the steer. By the way, this is not an endorsement of John Deere products :)

Reading Materials

2010-01-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Before we started the farm, Jenn and I did a lot of dreaming about how it would look for us to be farmers, and how exactly we would go about it. As such, we read a lot of books and magazines that are dedicated to the type of farming we dreamt of, that being, small family farms. When we started looking for materials, we were surprised. There is a lot of literature dedicated to the vocation of small or family farming. At first, we picked up a lot of books at our local libraries that were pretty antiquated, but still address the critical issue – our dreams. One such book was “Five Acres and Independence” by M.G. Kains. We rarely refer to it now, but it was a great starter book. We gleaned a lot of good information about all kinds of livestock from the “Storey” guides, which are advertized in nearly every farming, homesteading, or specialty magazine (www.storey.com) . Also, there is a magazine called “Countryside and Small Stock Journal” (www.countrysidemag.com) that is always loaded with interesting ideas, though more from an “individualistic” homesteaders point of view than that of a CSA or community perspective.
When we visited our first CSA farm, and asked if there was any good literature that they could recommend, they insisted that “You Can Farm” by the legendary Joel Salatin would be the most inspiring book we could read. Inspiring does not necessarily translate in “how to” but it certainly gets one started in the confidence department. After reading Salatin’s story of success, you will feel that successful small farming is within your reach. Salatin has written numerous other books, he writes for Stockman Grass Journal, and does numerous workshops around the nation. His farm, Polyface, is also open to visitors. In fact, if you google Salatin, you will see that he is the author of many articles and books dedicated to issues ranging from starting your own farm to quasi-rants against government regulation. All of his work contains a lot of truth, and it is not a truth that he maintains between the lines. Sometimes, he can be a little tough to swallow for just that reason.
For basic backyard poultry, and more, find a copy of Andy Lee’s and Pat Foreman’s “Chicken Tractor: A Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil.” Even Salatin refers to this book as a classic in small farming “howtoitedness.” Undoubtedly, if you want to start with layer hens or meat chickens, there is an overwhelming amount of literature available, most all of it useful, and available through library systems.
As for magazines, other than Countryside, we read an occasional issue of Stockman Grass Farmer which has PDF’s available at www.stockmangrassfarmer.com, as well as a plethora of small farm and grazier related books for sale. SGF is highly informative, but for our needs, a little advanced, and targeted toward larger scale operations.
I highly recommend “Farming Magazine.” Jenn and I ran across our first issue of this magazine while attending Ohio Yearly Meeting in Barnseville, OH. We fell in love with it, as it is dedicated to exactly the same kind of farming and lifestyle that our family is. We forgot about it for a short time, then googled it and asked the publisher for a sample copy. We then felt we wanted a subscription, but put it off until yesterday, when we were visiting with some Amish friends. They also had a subscription, and loaned us a copy. I ordered our subscription today. It has articles from Gene Logsdon (google his name for some great titles), and has had many contributions from Wendell Berry. It is an Amish publication, but is not overwhelmingly (or even marginally) religious. It is just very simple, very well written, and very in-tune with those who see farming as a vocation. In fact, most every title I mentioned in this blog views farming as a family centered vocation, just as Jenn and I do. Find out more about “Farming Magazine” by getting basic information from a basic website, www.farmingmagazine.net.

Sowing Pasture

2010-01-23T05:55:00.000-08:00

We have received our first income for the year, having sold three shares at this point, and the investments have allowed us to begin building toward the season. The first task was to build a brooder for the chicks we will be raising this year. As mentioned before, we have been brooding some of the chicks in Rosa and Micah’s bedroom. You can imagine the troubles created by that arrangement. So, we built a brooder out of wood and hardware mesh. It will be strong enough to keep cats and raccoons from stealing the chicks, and has taller sides to keep the breeze out. We can now start our chicks outside in the garage.
We also purchased pasture seed, which we plan to sown as soon as the winter thaw comes around. We were able to get a locally produced mixture from a small area business. If anyone is interested in sowing pasture, this is what we have found – shop around. Of course, Tractor Supply Company had the most inexpensive mix, but that store is not locally owned, and they don’t have mix in stock until spring. Many seed specialist businesses, whether locally owned or not, are really very expensive. We called the local cooperative as well. They wanted $225 for a fifty pound bag of standard mix. And, last season, when we called a family own seed business I Zeeland, when I asked for an inexpensive pasture mix, I was laughed at for having “crazy ideas” about how pasture should be grown. The dealer also informed me that fifty pounds of pasture seed would cost us $270. This season, we went to Rhino Seed in Bradley, just up the road, and received our fifty pounds for $122. Serendipity baby!
We have money in our account to build the new chicken tractors for the year. This season, we will use PVC pipe instead of wood. I don’t know if it will be less expensive (probably not), but they should last longer. The wooden tractors we made last season, will do well to last one more year.
As an experiment, Jenn and the kids have borrowed an incubator, and placed some of our Americauna eggs into it, hoping they will hatch around the 11th. Of course, Jenn will be in Mexico then, so I will be stuck with the experiment. Fortunately, we gained pretty valuable experience a few months ago after a broody hen hatched a few for us and we had to take over their care.
So long for now, and consider purchasing a share for the 2010 season.

January means it's time to start farming

2010-01-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

Now it is January, and we are beginning to get excited about getting things going around the farm. We have asked a few folks to serve as board members, as we are going to submit paper work in order to gain Michigan non-profit status. This status won’t mean very much for this year’s work, but it may be important a few years down the road when we begin to expand and adjust our goals to meet more need in our community.
After the papers are filed, Jenn and I will suggest a share price, which right now looks to be about $425 for the whole season. We will provide eggs every two weeks, 60 pounds of pork, six chickens, and hopefully, new for this year, turkeys. We are hoping to sell twenty shares this season, an increase over the thirteen we sold last season.
What needs to be done in January, or , what we hope to accomplish if we get some early shares sold, is to make our new chicken tractors (a new design for this season), construct a brooder, and purchase seed in time to plant new pasture during the January thaw.
One of the things we have already done is to file a DBA (doing business as) form with Allegan County. This means that you will be able to write checks to Sandhill CSA as well as to Scot or Jenn. Last year, we had some problem cashing a few checks because of our failure to register as a business. What all of this means, is, we are a legitimate farming enterprise in the eyes of the state, and perhaps, more legitimate to potential shareholders who might be leery of writing a check to a person instead of a business.
As a point of interest, I thought I’d share some of the major points of our non-profit plans with you, so you get an idea of what direction we are presently taking the farm. These are the suggestions we will be taking to a board when it is established:

Article II
The purpose or purposes for which the corporation is organized
A. To foster strong relationships between urban and rural communities through non-profit community farming and healthy food.
B. To educate diverse populations about the importance of locally grown food, family farms, and personal relationships to the stability of local economies and healthy communities.
C. To develop a not for profit breeding program for heritage breed livestock.
D. To educate interested adults and children about the intricacies of micro-farming, and livestock and pasture management.
E. To provide a percentage of Sandhill CSA harvest to low income families or shelters.

Thanks for reading. Now that the holidays have past (The Quakers are not supposed to celebrate holidays), we will begin the work of preparation and be updating you all on the progress we are making as we draw closer to the fun of the farming season.

Snow Days on the Farm

2009-12-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

We recently had three great snow days on the farm. More than anything, these days were the silver lining in an otherwise cloudy situation. For two days of the week, I didn’t have enough gas in the car to make the 45 mile drive to my internship in Holland. On the third snow day, the weather was so bad that my supervisor instructed me not to make the drive. So, I lost valuable internship hours and was unable to spend valuable time with clients. Because of the circumstances, it was quite embarrassing.
However, since Jenn was home all three days, and we home school the three youngest children, we were together as a family with three days of unscheduled opportunity. So what happens on a farm during snow days? Well, since we have plenty of food in the house, we didn’t need to shopping or anything like that so we were able to stay home and enjoy the snow. Of course, we had to feed the laying hens and the eight barn cats, but other than those chores, we were able to build snowmen, make full family dinners, do a lot of reading to each other, clean our bedroom, write content for blogs, create art, engage in Bible study, shovel snow together, rescue chickens caught in the snow, feed suet to the winter birds, listen to a music by diverse bands like The Crossing, Talking Heads, and Mudhoney and Motorhead, Taylor Swift, and Parliament.
Snow days are a good time to take naps, and tell stories about infamous blizzards of the past. All of our children were born during winter, so we had snow stories for each birth of the youngest three children. We remember broken arms caused by huge icicles, sledding accidents caused by huge trees, and hockey game cancellations caused by huge storms.
A great thing about blizzards, however, is something rarely talked about on our farm or by others, for that matter. The great things are that we are in a warm place with food, heat, hot water, transportation, and most of all, each other. That is a blessing that many people don’t share. That’s why giving, especially the sharing of time, can be such a blessing to others.

Sandhill's experiment with Broilers

2009-12-02T07:04:00.001-08:00

OK, back to farming. One of the new enterprises that was undertaken at Sandhill was the addition of broilers to our ongoing farm experiment. We had raised layer hens for a few years, but we have never raised them for meat (except for culled roosters) until this past year. We decided to try two rounds of fifty broilers each. We followed the suggestions laid out by Andy Lee’s book entitle Chicken Tractor (There is more to the title, but I can’t recall it offhand) and commenced to building the pens that would hold the chickens.

The materials we purchased for the two 8’ by 10’ cages (three feet deep, two deep would have been better) cost us about $80 each, using 1” by 2” boards, chicken wire, and a rather expensive composite plastic corrugated covering. We fastened the sides and top, and the chicken wire with staples and three inch screws. We kept each panel separate in our basement where we erected them until the snow melted and we pieced each side together with zip ties and reinforced that with screws.

Next, it was time for the broiler chickens. We ordered the more marketable White Mountain crosses, which are bred to grow to five or six pounds (or more) in eight weeks. We are still not sure about ordering dual purpose heritage breeds for this year, which grow slower but are more in tune with our farming philosophy). At any rate, when you order fifty chicks of any breed, you have to brood them from one-day-old to the point where they are hearty enough to stand against the cold and other elements. Not having a brooder, and having eight barn cats in our garage, we made the decision to brood these first fifty chicks in our house because the May weather in Michigan last spring was still very cold, especially at night. First, I’d like to state that many people we have spoken with in our community have brooded chicks inside their homes. Secondly, I can tell you that each of us have reported that this is a most unpleasant experience. After brooding the chicks in a plastic swimming pool last season, this year we will build a brooder (To purchase one costs about $290 - $350)and place them in the garage with appropriate protection from the cats. You will never feel the need to clean as thoroughly as you will after having livestock in your house. (On the other hand, 10 or so layers, even 25 layers, are not as bad to brood in the house, as there is less waste to deal with).

Once they were hearty enough, we transferred the chicks out to the chicken tractors, and began to move them to fresh grass every day, and fed them broiler grower twice a day. We fed them a lot, but took seriously the instructions to keep them on feed for twelve hours, and then remove the feed for twelve hours, to reduce complications arising from over eating. We went through approximately 15 bags of feed in eight weeks costing around $13 a bag.

We faced two problems with our two sets of broilers. First, we lost nine chickens to the late July heat, not because they didn’t have enough water, but most likely because they didn’t have proper shade. One thing we know, the broilers will not walk more than three feet to drink water, so, if there is not proper shade, they will be overwhelmed by 90 degree heat. This was a tragedy around our farm, as we felt that if we would have been on the farm instead of working outside the home, we could have better protected the animals. An tarp solved this problem. The other problem was predators. We dealt with them severely, shooting two raccoons that had stolen two chickens from us, and one skunk that had killed two chicks. Predators always return to the scene of the crime, because they know it will be easy pickings. Raccoons, however, tend to come within four hours of darkness, and I only had to wait for a few hours before shooting them an hour apart with a twelve gauge. The skunk took some thought, however, as I was concerned about the release of musk. Skunks come in the morning, and I decided to use a .22 caliber rifle for the skunk. It worked, with minimal smell resulting. Many folks, especially Quakers, are concerned about the hunting of predators, as opposed to trapping them. In rural areas, once predators feel safe enough to approach human homes, they will continue to do so wherever they are released from live traps. To release a raccoon into another homes range is to give other home owners trouble. Also, when we tried a live trap in Ohio once, the raccoons were smart enough to steal the bait from the trap, then proceed to raid our barn for chickens. I am not about to live trap a skunk. As for pacifists having guns on the property, the reality of coyotes, small predators, injured game, and sick and dying animals is a reality of rural life, and hunting weapons, while not absolutely necessary, are a solution to such problems.

Back to chickens. Finally, after eight weeks of feeding broilers, it was time for butchering. There are many ways to prepare a chicken for butchering. I prefer to shoot them in the head while holding them upside down, as it is quick and painless. Killing cones will be added this year, because as the birds flap after death, the wings can break due to the force of the spasms. After they bleed out, I remove the head, then we scald them in 155-degree water that we have added dish soap to in order to ease the removal of feathers from the carcass. Picking a chicken by hand is a time consuming process, and for this year, we hope to build our own chicken picking machine ( A new chicken plucker from a manufacturer costs more than a thousand dollars). It will reduce the time to prepare a bird for butchering from 10 minutes per bird to 20 seconds for two birds. Once the bird is plucked, it is ready for dressing, which, after four or five birds, takes about three minutes or less. However, the first one might take as many as fifteen minutes. It simply takes practice. After dressing the bird, we clean out any remnants from dressing the bird in a water bath, then age the bird for a day or two in a refrigerator before freezing. Our shareholders can pick them up cold or frozen, either way. We have not received one complaint about our birds, and we love them ourselves. They taste great, even better when you raise them yourselves.

Plain clothes, farming, and intentionality

2009-11-30T05:46:00.000-08:00

A lot of folks, ranging from family members to liberal Quakers, from good friends to strangers, ask us why we wear plain clothes. A lot of people ask us if we are Amish. When we tell them we are Conservative Friends, they inevitably ask, “what’s the difference?” So, I’d like to use the farm blog to talk about that aspect of our faith and practice that is related to clothing and lifestyle. Much of it has to do with the Friends testimonies concerning simplicity, equality, integrity, peace, and community. Much of it has to do with the biblical witness. And, as with everything that people do intentionally, why we do what we do has a lot to do with politics, economics, and public witness.

Our family wears plain clothing, we farm, and provides ministry to people in a variety of ways because we believe that the life of Jesus is the normative life for those who express faith in the God of Abraham and Sarah. Integral parts of the Hebrew Bible, and much more of the Greek Testament, present the ideal of a community of faith that stands out as a witness to YHWH. The biblical memory of Jesus, and much of the Greek Testament, places a focus on humility as being characteristic of this community, as well as socio-economic choices that eschew the kind of pride that is often related to clothing styles of one fashion or another. Of course, Jesus sets the tone for, and is remembered by the fledgling messianic communities, to emphasize the importance of public witness in standing fast against the persecution of empire and the Yahwist aristocracies of Jerusalem and the Diaspora. So, plain clothing is a testimony to the kind of humility that is perhaps evidenced by individuals in Christ-centered communities who submit to a corporate character, while at the same time promoting an awareness that a people dedicated to God exist in the midst of communities who are not aware that alternatives to the socio-economic standard exist.

As a Quaker, I am readily aware that, like early messianics, early Friends were persecuted for their ministry, but continued forward with a very public witness despite persecution. This public witness to Jesus, to peace, and equality, and simple justice, is made all the more obvious when it can be related to a people who can be readily identified as such a people. Many a conversation about the peace testimony, the Underground Railroad, or George Fox have been started because of my plain clothing.

Many people also ask about head coverings. The women in our family do not wear head coverings because of the biblical reference found at 1 Corinthians 11. The women in our family, as well as the men, cover our heads as an attempt to humble ourselves before God, but also as a constant reminder that there is a Creator God who is always watching over us. We spend less time worrying about looking attractive to others and more time focused on standing along side of a Creator, who, while sometimes seems hidden, is always finding ways to present the divine self to us. Head coverings, as well as plain clothes, remind us that we must always be humble enough to see God reflected in those placed before us. Our hope is that, when we are humbled appropriately, others will see God reflected in our attitudes, instead of the consumer values that drive so many to spend small fortunes on hair styles and products like makeup that are intended to present us as something more in tune with popular culture than with a pattern that is not of this age.

Another concern we have with worldly fashions is the way in which modern clothes are manufactured. We believe that we are taking a visible stand against sweatshop labor by wearing handmade clothing that we pay a fair price for, which is made locally, with American manufactured fabrics. Also, we believe that purchasing clothes at contemporary clothing stores, resale or otherwise, promotes businesses that exploit women especially, and promote sensuality in children and teens that exploits their sense of identity, sexuality, and economic sensibilities. Fashion promotes a contrived sense of individuality, marketing toward those aspects of rebellion, sexuality, or self-marginalizing behaviors that people choose to engage in as a response to their own, and the world’s, brokenness.

Many think plain clothes and farming are a simple lifestyle, but really, our lifestyle is very intentional, and is expressly related to our belief that all people are equal, and all beings deserve justice. While there will never be a perfect place to stand in our world, the idea that persons should be judged more by their character and nature than by the clothing they wear is an integral part of plain clothing. Not only do adults suffer undeserved shame and disgrace because of clothes that might not comply with elite standards of society, school children everywhere suffer indignities because they cannot keep up with the changing realities of fashion. Also, fashions are frivolous, and exploit resources as well as promoting waste. They promote a double standard, as many people wear one kind of clothing to work and church, and another kind of clothing to “relax” in.

As for farming, we believe that food can be the center of an intentional community, providing the inspiration for people to contribute their own gifts to community in a manner that makes use of distinctive and local resources that enhance a community’s ability to know and depend on one another, and see the ecological and labor imprint that our lifestyles leave upon our own locale and neighbors. A side of beef, pork, chickens and eggs, clothing, heating resources, milk, and labor are all much more costly than the cheap products Americans demand for goods that exploit the cheap labor and resources of other counties. It takes time and resources to produce food, it does not magically appear at Wal-mart. In the economy of the Greek Testament, it took ten peasants to support the lifestyle of one landed elite. It must take many more resources and wage slave production models to support the lifestyle of one American.

As such, we wear plain clothing, and engage in an alternative economy as much as we can, in order to promote what we believe are the values that best reflect the character of Jesus and early Christ-centered communities. It is a voluntary public witness to our Quaker testimonies. We hope not to inspire others to dress plain, but to think seriously about the world around them, and develop their own community driven public witness to peace, justice, and the salvific character of Jesus the messiah.

Wrestling hogs and other well-laid plans

2009-11-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

After writing about the pig pen yesterday I was reminded of the first year we had hogs and the time came to transfer them from our barn to the butcher. This happened in the spring, and I figured that I could get the job done easily enough if I just had a truck to use. It just so happened that a friend from seminary owned a rather aging S-10 that looked as though it had been used to haul livestock regularly, even if that was not the case. Better yet, my seminary friend grew up on a farm, and I figured she might provide some support if things didn’t go the way I had planned.
Julie came over early in the morning, and I initiated the first of what would be many grand hog hauling schemes. I had refrained from feeding the hogs the night before, so they would be nice and hungry on butchering morning. I backed the truck into our barn, and opened the rear gate. I then poured an ample amount of food into one of the hogs’ feeding dishes, gave them a nice sniff of aromatic corn mash, and set it up in the bed of the truck. It was my expectation that both hogs would walk right up the ramp I had made especially for the occasion, and I would shut them in and drive them to meet the butcher. The hogs however, knew something very well that I did not. Hogs do not simply climb up ramps into the back of small trucks, not if they are a little hungry, and not if they are starved. Contrary to all I have heard, hogs are not so curious as to climb into the back of a truck either.
The next plan was to simply wrestle the hogs into submission, and lift them into the back of the truck. Of course, they weighed more than three hundred pounds apiece, so I accepted the fact that I might need Julie and Jenn’s help. Another thing that I did not know, was that when you try to wrestle hogs, they do not simply submit to practical wrestling holds, but the fight back. Indeed, if you know the hog well enough to have scratched behind its ears every day for the last –say – five months, they think you are playing and wrestle back. So, as soon as I attempted to wrestle one hog into submission – she sat on me, and then rolled around a little bit because she was enjoying the game of balancing herself on my own ample belly. It was like watching a medicine ball balance on another medicine ball. Time for plan C.
Plan C was to try and hog tie the animal, so we drove all the way into town for a rope, and drove back to put it to use. The problem was, neither Julie nor me, nor Jenn , knew anything about hog-tying a hog, or any other kind of livestock. I couldn’t have lassoed a hog if it were laying asleep and I had a net. Time for plan D.
Plan D involved calling Julie’s dad, who was a farmer back in New York, and he said it was pretty easy to lead a hog around if you just placed a five-gallon bucket over the hog’s head. I had plenty of five-gallon buckets around the farm, and we immediately retrieved one in hopes of guiding a blinded hog up a ramp into the back of a truck. The problem was that Julie’s dad must have either raised some very small hogs, or pulled ten-gallon hats down over their eyes, not five-gallon buckets. The buckets did not come anywhere close to sliding down over our hog’s head. Time for plan D.2.
We called a local hog farmer and asked how he loaded his hogs into the livestock truck. He told us to use a ramp, and I said we did. He said chase it up the ramp. I explained that the hog refused this opportunity. He asked if our ramp had sides to prevent the hog from turning from side to side. A-ha, I thought, this is the answer. However, we had nothing that could be used for sides to my homemade ramp, but the two graduate students on site decided we could certainly construct something similar to a ramp with sides. We got together and procured some t-posts, some barbed-wire, and an old automotive hood that had been laying around the farm because those are the kinds of things that farmers never throw away. We pulled the truck around to the back gate, and erected a barbed-wire corridor that led from the barn to the back of the truck, with the car hood leaned against the side of the barbed-wire as an additional deterrent to the hog’s desire for freedom. Believe it or not, the plan worked. At least, it initially worked. But as soon as we got close enough to the truck, the hog turned, forced its way through the barbed-wire, over the top of the car hood, and back into the pig pen where, once it was safe again, began to smile again as though she wanted to play more. Bruised and bloodied from the barbed-wire experience, Julie and I sat and muttered about how much we hated these hogs. Rosa was having a great time watching all the work, however, and she remained optimistic by singing “we’re having bacon tonight.” Since we could not come up with a plan E, Julie and I drove back into town to ask people at the grain co-op if they had any ideas.
Of course, the people at the grain co-op thought we were crazy. Why in the world didn’t we use the proper equipment like everyone else in the county. We tried to explain that we didn’t have the proper equipment, which naturally left them to wonder why in the world we had three hundred pound hogs, then. I felt stuck. I was at the point where I just wanted to shoot the hogs out of spite, but the butcher could only work with them if they were brought in under their own steam. Back to the drawing board.
While Julie and I were gone, Jenn had the bright idea of going next door to the vet to ask how he moved hogs from one point to another. They explained that they did it with a hog catcher. We wondered if this was Preble County’s cousin to a dog catcher, but as it turns out, there is a special tool designed to grab a hog by the snout so that it is more easily managed. Jenn borrowed the hog catcher, handed it over to me, and I commenced to catching the hog.
Funny thing about hogs is, once they are caught, and being moved to a place that is not where they would choose to go on their own, they intend to dig into the spring muck and howl. Now, there is no way to describe a hog scream, or howl, or whatever that noise is that is made by pigs in danger of being turned into pork, but I assure you that it is intense and deafening. And while I pulled at the hog’s snout, which was looped tight with the hog catcher apparatus, Jenn and Julie pushed it from behind. We moved that hog about fifty yards - an inch at a time - up the homemade ramp and into the back end of the S-10, which has just enough room for one three-hundred pound hog. Unfortunately, I was in the back of the truck with her, and she was not happy with me at all.
Of course, hogs don’t know that you should never corner a seminarian, because we can be vicious on our knees. Even Quaker’s pray, and when I started to pray that the Almighty would get me past the hog, the hog started fussing to get the hog catching apparatus off of her snout (it was still stuck there), and cleared a path to let me by and out of the truck, where Jenn and Julie promptly shut the hatch. The hog was ready for transport, and just as Julie had predicted, it tasted all that much better because of the epic battle that we fought to get it to the butcher. As for the other hog, we were too tired to move that one for another two months, and it loved us all the same – until butchering day number two came along, and plans F through K.3 were employed.

Fresh Country Air

2009-11-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

Micah and Rosa worked hard today, and they didn’t once complain about the odor that will be accompanying their boots for a few days. In order to try and save some costs for next year, Jenn and I decided to use the hog shelter for beef calves, and erect a simple livestock panel-and-tarp shelter for the pigs. Savings… four hundred dollars. For today, however, we first needed to tear down the hog pen so that we can place next years swine on fresh pasture. We are going to expand the hogs’ pasture area by about half, and we took down all of the panels and t-posts from this past year’s pen. That involved a lot of work that had to be performed in the areas where the pigs liked to eliminate waste. The smell didn’t bother any of us while we were outdoors, but when we got back into the garage, the smell of our boots and gloves was ripe, to say the least.

The subject of odors, however, or “fresh country air,” as some people like to say, can be a touchy one. It is true that many large-scale farmers tend to be bothered by suburbanites who move to rural areas and complain because the farms – well - they stink. Manure lagoons and spreaders do not produce the most pleasant aromas to be living with, unless you are profiting from them. As larger farmers like to say, the smell of manure is the smell of money. The fact is, however, that an ecologically considerate farm should not make the whole neighborhood smell like manure. If animals are pastured, and rotated properly, and the animals on the farm are all allowed the freedom to live the way God intends them to, the soil is improved, manure is spread throughout the pasture as chickens scratch it into the soil, and the smell is only evident when someone steps in a pie, or the pig pen has had about six months of continuous use. The only smell of manure that is around our home, other than when we step in something in the pasture, is the smell of manure that is spread by the dairy and egg farmers that apply it to plowed fields so that they can grow grain to feed animals stuck in confinement housing.

When people drive by a pasture full of cows or beef steers, they never say” “wow, that smells of manure.” They rather enjoy the vista, and smell real country air if their windows happen to be down. But, drive by many dairy farms, a corporate hog farm, or a corn or soy bean field at the right time of year, and you will surely smell “that fresh country air.” In fact, it is air pollution.

The suburban transplants shouldn’t complain about odors, though. Surely they enjoy the pleasure of cheap and endless supplies of confinement beef and pork, and processed food to fill their bellies with, while the land erodes away and future generations are left with fewer healthy food options.

Nurturing the agricultural dream

2009-11-20T06:28:00.000-08:00

It may seem a bit odd to begin a blog about farming after our season has finished. But after having a great experience during our first year as CSA producers, we are already looking forward to next year, and are in the planning stages for the 2010 season. As for this blog, we thought it might be interesting reading for a few types of folks. First, it might take the place of a newsletter for our members, and keep them updated on how things are going, what we are doing, and what we are planning to do. The second type of folks we are hoping will enjoy this blog are those people who just want to keep up with how our family is doing, as we will probably include a lot of info about who we are as a family, who we are as Quakers, and who we are in relationship to farming and servanthood in the midst of community. Finally, we hope that this blog can serve as a catalyst for new CSA projects, and provide a forum where other budding farmers can find the inspiration to move forward toward realizing their dreams.

Jenn and I had been dreaming about engaging with agriculture for a good many years – more than a decade, before finally going ahead with a livestock experiment when we moved to Ohio, where I could attend seminary at Earlham right across the state line. We had raised a few chickens before, but this time we invested in a flock of 25, and went into the egg business. Also, we purchased our first feeder pigs to raise pork. When we returned from our sojourn in Ohio, we immediately purchased new layer chicks and a few pigs. We also purchased a dairy bull calf in an attempt to raise our own beef.

As we went along producing livestock for our own consumption, I continued to lament the lack of community that I felt could be centered around farm and food. But as I complained and spoke mostly negatively about this dream of a CSA farm that I had, someone at a Quaker book discussion finally got sick of my negativity and challenged me to do something positive. In response to that challenge, Jenn and I decided to move forward, despite our lack of experience with CSA farming, and developed a plan to farm and sell shares. The most fearful part was asking people to invest when we had no idea whether we could produce for more than just our own family. However, the best advice I have for dreamers like us is – stop talking so much and just get it done.

Yet, as time went by and the spring, summer and fall have passed, we did it. And, as I said above, we plan to move forward with even bigger plans for next year. As we move forth toward our second season as a CSA, we will use the wintertime to provide readers with anecdotes and experiences of farming that might keep you all informed about the beginning of the farming process, where it is that food comes from, and how it reaches your table. We hope you continue to read. Blessings, r. scot miller.